Friends face off over the ballot box

Despite a national political climate overrun by negative campaign ads and attack politics, two local candidates for Montana’s House District 14 cannot seem to find a negative word to say about one another.

“I have a lot of respect for Gordon,” said candidate Cindy Grimm about her opponent and the incumbent for the seat, Gordon Hendrick.

Grimm, a Democrat, is the Mineral County Commissioner’s administrative assistant and has lived in Mineral County for four years.

She said that she never expected to be running for Montana House when she and her husband Mark sold their home and moved here from Houston after falling in love with Montana while on vacation.

“We decided that we wanted quality of life instead of money and we gathered up all of our stuff and sold our home and property in two days and off we went,” Grimm said.

Since moving to the county Grimm has worked with the Mineral County Justice Court and the commissioners and said she is still thrilled with their choice to move here.

“It’s a wonderful place to live,” Grimm said.

Hendrick has lived in Mineral County for much of his life and has been involved in local politics since 1988. He spent time on the Superior Town Council as a council member, as the town’s mayor and has served as the District 14 Representative for the past two terms.

“It’s a very thankless job at times but some of the rewards you get when you see that you’ve done well are worth all of the tea and money in China to me,” Hendrick said.

District 14 includes all of Mineral County and parts of Sanders and Missoula County.

Grimm said that despite her lack of experience she has received a lot of help canvassing and building her opinions on the issues from Senator Max Baucus’ office in Missoula.

“I’m running for this office because people need hard-working diligent representation for this district. There are some area specific and district specific issues that need to be addressed,” Grimm said.

She feels that after the last reconfiguration of how property taxes are assessed, counties that were supposed to see more money have not been seeing results.

“The counties are suffering,” Grimm said.

According to Grimm, one of the more stunning changes was the drop in taxes collected from power lines stretched through the county. She said that the taxes collected on these properties dropped nearly 15 percent in order to keep companies from protesting the taxes.

“That’s a big deal for counties like us because most of the land is federal land so we don’t get any tax money off of it,” Grimm said.

Grimm also said that she wants to focus on bringing businesses into the district.

“Economic development is really critical here again because so much of Mineral County is government-owned and state-owned land. We need to develop really wisely the tax income for the county,” Grimm said.

Grimm said that while she lacks Hendrick’s experience she has garnered a lot of knowledge about how the district operates and how to help people in the area by being a part of the operations of the Mineral County Commissioners.

“Being in there with them taking minutes I’ve learned a lot about the issues of Mineral County and the things that are important to people because when they really have problems they come to the commissioners,” Grimm said.

Hendrick, who has been campaigning for the seat for a while, said he feels like his job with Montana’s House of Representatives is far from over.

“I hate dropping a job in the middle,” Hendrick said.

He said that some of his bigger concerns for the coming term are bringing in more money to the public health department and working with the Flathead Nation, which is part of the district.

“I serve all of Montana, not just the communities I represent here,” Hendrick added.

Hendrick also said that he wants to help unite the frontier communities, counties with populations under 5,000, like Mineral County to help them get the funding they need.

“We hope to be able to unite all of the frontier communities and be a voice,” Hendrick said.

He added that many larger counties tend to use smaller counties with lots of federal land as a source of money and if these smaller communities work together they can change the face of how the state operates.

“We have so many natural resources that we are unable to tap into,” Hendrick said.

Hendrick also wants to try again to pass through a bill freezing property taxes for those over the age of 65. He said that his bill allows for them to pay the same taxes on their property until the property changes owners.

Hendrick said that last session when he presented the bill it was shot down because some felt it was a form of segregating the elderly community.

“It doesn’t matter they’ve paid their dues, we shouldn’t overtax them,” Hendrick said.

Hendrick also said that he wants to work to stop useless legislation from passing. He mentioned voting against a bill that passed last session allowing for each member of the house to purchase a $1,500 laptop with state funds.

“I’m not about to have the people buy me a laptop that I’m only going to use for four months,” Hendrick said.

He added that while cutting back on paper use may be appealing to some he wants to support timber and paper companies, many of which helped build Montana into what it is today.

Despite their different plans and visions for what needs change in District 14, the pair seems to be united on one fact, they are not going to take a negative angle with the campaign.

“It’s not so much about her, it’s about what I’m trying to get done,” Hendrick said.

While the two are not necessarily best pals, they deal with one another on a regular basis through the Mineral County Commissioners and it would be impossible to tell that they are vying for the same seat in November’s approaching election.

“I’ve never run for anything against anyone in my life and with Gordon it’s all okay because he is very supportive of me and I am supportive of him,” Grimm said.

Grimm started her door-to-door campaign of voters this weekend and Hendrick admits that he has been out shaking hands since he was last voted in, but when it comes to the Mineral County business, the two are committed to doing their current jobs first.

“We just kind of work along with it, you can’t take these things to personal,” Hendrick said.